words to the princess, her bright eyes flashed and she replied with spirit, “Indeed! since then I have broken the commands of this high and mighty king, let him kill me if he likes, I never will meet that woman.”
So the Lady Tassel had to return with her grand retinue, with what dignity she could, and report to the Mikado the failure of her errand. The Mikado laughed out, “O! the little flirt! she wants to break my heart too, as she has broken the hearts of all her other wooers”; and he tried to think no more about it. But the more he tried the less he could forget, and so he settled the matter by sending for Taketori and asking his daughter in marriage. The old man came trembling into the presence of the emperor |
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and kneeling said, that he had been greatly distressed by the way his daughter had treated His Majesty's messenger and he would return and make known His August wishes. The Mikado, to place the matter beyond all dispute, said, that surely Taketori had a right to dispose of his own daughter's hand as he pleased, and if the marriage were consummated he would bestow a high rank on the old wood-cutter.
Taketori highly delighted went home and urged the princess to comply with the wishes of the Mikado: but she declared, that she never, never would be a palace slave, and if her father insisted upon it, through his desire for rank and office, she would just vanish and they would never see her any more. “What are rank and office,” ex- |
